


Boomerang Arrow (It Comes Back to You In the End)

by amoosebouche



Series: What's the Worst That Can Happen [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asshole Customer Meets Asshole Employee, Bar Bathroom Hookup Unexpectedly Leads to Feelings, Bookstores, Castiel Works in a Bookstore, Dean is a customer there, From Sex to Love, Geek/Gaming Bars, Hate to Like, Hawkeye (Matt Fraction Comic Book), M/M, Mario Kart, Misunderstandings, Public Hand Jobs, Semi-Public Sex, comic book geekery, fuck it i'm just gonna post this, or at least a relationship, smutty smut smut, the author is incapable of writing non-cracky summaries, the author still can't write endings, the summary is cracky but it's actually not that cracky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 17:23:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5342276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amoosebouche/pseuds/amoosebouche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ace bookseller Castiel Novak battles cantankerous customers, misplaced merchandise, huffy hotties and ribald revelry in amoosebouche's exciting, adventurous reinvention of the beleaguered Bookslinger! (No tracksuits, though, bro.)</p><p>Bro. Seriously. Seriously, Bro.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boomerang Arrow (It Comes Back to You In the End)

**Author's Note:**

> This is NOT a Hawkeye/SPN mashup or crossover. I just have a terrible sense of humor and keep putting Hawkeye stuff all over the place (like the title, the summary, the actual fucking story, and the tags).
> 
> Also, the majority of this is very thinly disguised bitching about working in retail, so, sorry. I basically just wrote this to let off some steam from the holiday season... it's not my best, but OH WELL.
> 
> Oh look, I also have a disclaimer, because I do work in a bookstore and we do have weird customers: however, _the customers in this fic are Not Actually Real People_ ok? ok. they are simply invented conglomerations of annoying habits that some customers tend to have.

Shelving paperbacks can be fairly boring, so it’s no surprise that Castiel is daydreaming when an annoyed voice cuts into his reverie.  He looks up to see a man staring down at him, brows raised imperiously as he waits for Cas to notice him. And now that he _does_ notice him, he’s surprised it took him this long. One of the downsides of getting so focused in work is missing when really hot guys want help. Oh, and then looking like an idiot by unintentionally ignoring them. 

“Oh, um,” Cas stutters intelligently as he struggles to stand up from kneeling. “Sorry, I was really focused on this. What are you looking for?” 

The guy is just downright gorgeous, with lightly tanned skin, light brown hair, a smattering of freckles, and mossy green eyes. 

“I said, I have a list of books for a class, hoping you can help me get my hands on at least a few of them?”

“Can I see the list?”

The man hands over a slightly crumpled piece of notebook paper, which has a number of titles scrawled on it in block lettering. At least it’s legible, Castiel supposes. 

“Well, I already know I don’t have The Martian Chronicles—” 

“You didn’t even look!” Hot Guy interrupts, frowning. Oh, great, he’s going to be one of _those_. 

_If you’d let me finish, I would tell you that I was_ _just over there_ , Cas fumes silently. Today’s not the day to get fired, though, so he plasters a strained smile on his face.

“Alrighty then, if you follow me over to the other aisle here—” Voice dripping with false cheer, he walks around the corner to the beginning of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section, Hot Guy following him petulantly. “—Ah, yes. As you can see, I have a lot of copies of Fahrenheit 451, but no Martian Chronicles. I can check the hardback section if you’d like—”

“Nah, the paperbacks are cheaper. What about the other stuff?” Hot Guy answers gruffly, frowning like Cas has done this to him on purpose or something. Stifling a sigh, he looks back down at the list. He’s pretty sure he has a few of these, so at least he can get this guy out of his hair pretty soon. 

Cas finds a nice copy of Ender’s Game, only to have Hot Guy shove it back on the shelf and take an older, more battered copy. They don’t have the right Clarke title in paperback, so he skips over that one, moving onto Dick, Finney, LeGuin, and Orwell, where he fortunately has several options for Mr. Picky to choose from. Again, Hot Guy picks out the oldest, crappiest editions possible.

For every book Cas finds, there’s another that he just doesn’t have at the moment, and Hot Guy’s frown just keeps getting deeper as they go through the list. The frown abates the tiniest amount as they walk past the _A Song of Ice and Fire_ series, his fingers trailing over the spine of _A Feast for Crows_ , but then he moves on, sighing almost imperceptibly. So the class is probably some sort of classic Sci-Fi survey that doesn’t cover newer fantasy titles or authors; he figures there’s no point in making fantasy author recommendations. 

In the end, Cas was able to find six books for Hot Guy, with four unaccounted for. Steeling himself—knowing that good customer service requires that he ask, again, if Hot Guy wants him to look in the hardback section—he turns around, only to see the retreating back of the customer from hell, without so much as a ‘thank you’ for spending twenty minutes pouring over the guy’s stupid reading list.

_Whatever_. He takes a deep breath, then tries his darndest to walk calmly, and not storm, into the back room. 

Thankfully, Charlie’s back there wrapping up orders for shipping.

“I just had the _worst_ customer.” 

Charlie looks up from the orders computer, her excited let’s-gossip-about-jerks smile making an appearance, so Cas happily launches into a diatribe about the impossible to please Hot Guy. He stresses the part where he left without even thanking Cas, but conveniently neglects to mention the Hot part. Knowing Charlie, she’d probably take too keen an interest in that fact.

His ire rapidly drains away as he listens to Charlie’s reciprocal griping about a dad with a crying toddler from earlier in the day, and he soon makes his excuses, going back out onto the sales floor. As soon as he gets back to his shelving cart, though, he groans. Hot Guy is back in the Sci-Fi section, browsing right where Cas needs to be to resume shelving. Cas watches him for a few seconds, but the guy is engrossed in a book, looking like he’ll be there for several more minutes. Trying not to sigh, he grabs his cart and works his way around to the other aisle, intending to work his way in the other direction, hoping that Hot Guy is gone by the time he gets to the end of the other row.

He’s not more than a few minutes into his work when he feels a presence looming next to him, and with trepidation, he looks up, trying not to turn his head too much. Yep, it’s Hot Guy. 

“Sorry, let me move the cart out of your way,” he says in his best I’m-just-a-mindless-drone customer-service voice, and pushes the cart back to the stockroom, giving up on working his section for now.

For once, he’s glad when the phone rings when Charlie’s already on another call. He grabs the other line, a little surprised at how pleasant he’s able to sound. The caller is looking for some fantasy titles, _naturally_ , but at least being on the phone is a good excuse to ignore Hot Guy if the man is still out there. Or, to prove that he’s a good employee to someone who clearly thought otherwise.

However, there’s only an older lady browsing through the section this time, and Cas is oddly disappointed, even though he hasn’t had a pleasant interaction with Hot Guy yet. If the customer on the phone notices his change in mood, it’s not remarked upon. Once he’s got the call squared away, he realizes it’s time for him to be at the registers.

As the fates would have it, he’s not there more than a few minutes when he looks to the next in line and sees Hot Guy with an armful of books. Hot Guy walks up to Cas’s register with a younger man in tow. Actually, Cas realizes, the younger guy is more like a teenager, despite being almost as tall as Hot Guy. A high school kid, maybe? The reading list makes more sense, now, but he’s also suddenly terrified that he’s got Hot Guy’s age all wrong—it’s just unethical for a guy in his early 20s to be objectifying a customer who’s apparently old enough to have a high school age son.

To make matters worse, the teenager looks like he’s having just as good as a time as Hot Guy. Hot Guy dumps his armful of books on the counter, where they spread out haphazardly, and the teen drops his as well, a couple of them flopping down onto the floor. Blushing and angry, the teen sullenly bends down to pick them up. Hot Guy rolls his eyes.

For Cas, there’s almost nothing worse than family arguments at the register, where he’s a captive audience and has to remain polite and professional despite people arguing in front of him. 

And, on cue, Hot Guy and the teenager start bickering while Hot Guy methodically looks through all the books, pushing some aside while the teen frowns and protests. 

“Dean, why can’t we just get these, too?”

“They aren’t on the list, Sammy.”

“It’s _Sam_. And it’s not like it’ll take long to go through those, anyway! Can’t I have some books that I actually _want_ to read?”

“These are good books, and you’ll probably like them. They’re all classics. And Shurley is a surprisingly good teacher.”

Sam’s frown deepens, and Hot Guy— _Dean’s_ —does, as well. It looks like Sam is going to argue some more, but Dean cuts him off angrily.

“Sam, _we can’t afford all these_ ,” Dean hisses in what’s clearly meant to be just between the two of them. Cas reddens miserably at the unavoidable eavesdropping.

“Look, if you want books to read for fun, we’ll go to the library,” the guy adds in a softer tone. As much as he hates to agree with Hot— _Dean_ on anything, he highly approves of the library.  The kid probably wouldn’t want to re-read those in a year, anyway, so it makes little sense to buy them and more sense to borrow them.

Cas offers to take the rejected books from them, and Dean thrusts them across the counter. Once Cas has rung up the ones they _are_ buying, Dean painstakingly counts out the total in ones, fives, and coins. As Cas is placing the books in a bag, Dean gruffly interrupts him: “You can just shove them in there, ‘cuz we need to get going.” 

Predictably, given everything else he’s had to deal with from this guy, this rubs Cas the wrong way. He’s hard pressed to thank the man and politely send him on his way, but with great effort, he even manages a sickly smile and a “come back soon!” that he Absolutely Does Not Mean.

Later, in the break room, he moans to Kevin about how it was even more awful to check the guy out than it was to find his son’s reading list, and gets a sympathetic pat on the arm that restores his spirits the tiniest amount.

 

 

A couple of weeks pass, and Cas has forgotten about Hot Guy completely. After all, notable customers are a dime a dozen in retail. He has to contend with Crotchety Old Lady, who can never find the new James Patterson (there’s at least five recently published, and he’s not sure the guy actually wrote any of them, but that’s beside the point). There’s Conservative Geezer, otherwise known as Bob, who disapproves of his hair and his piercings and always responds to “how are you today” with “terrible”. Then there’s Coupon Mom, who tries to use every coupon multiple times—and then tries to use them again when she exchanges the things she bought on her previous visit. Finally, there’s the fantastically annoying and exceptionally odoriferous man that he hates too much to even assign a nickname.

It is entirely understandable that the existence of one very hot but only moderately annoying customer has slipped his mind.

On an otherwise normal Tuesday, though, he’s working in the Horror section, covering for Kevin, who’s out of town for a few days. Working in someone else’s area is always tricky; being unfamiliar with how the section flows, which authors to recommend, or which titles to keep on the shelf or rotate out always makes him anxious. He has to concentrate extra hard to stay focused and work efficiently. Which, of course, means that he is not paying quite as much attention to his surroundings as he ought. 

“Uh, excuse me, you work here?” A voice cuts into his thoughts. He abhors the intrusion, especially that asinine question because _he’s wearing the company t-shirt for fuck’s sake!,_ but customers are the main part of the job—the reason they all have jobs and the reason the store stays in business, as he has to remind himself several times a day—so he schools his face and turns. Sudden recognition dawns on the both of them at once, and Cas worries that he looks as annoyed as he feels when he meets the gaze of Hot Guy. Hot Guy, on the other hand, actually seems _pleased_ to see Cas.

“Hey! You were the guy that helped me last time, right?” Before Cas can answer, Hot Guy continues. “Actually, you probably don’t remember, but I was in here with my brother, and he had a bunch of books that I couldn’t get then. I was hoping you could help me track some of them down. Waiting list at the library is months long for, uh, ‘Maze Runner’ I guess?”

“Yes, of course. Over this way,” Cas says. Quashing his displeasure at the interruption, he leads the guy over to the Teen fiction section. 

Several thoughts flit through his mind as the pair travel through aisles of books: Hot Guy is still hot, of course; the teen kid was his _brother_ (he feels a little dumb for his panicky thought that Hot Guy could be in his thirties); Hot Guy has a battered copy of _Breakfast of Champions_ in his hands as well as a few other books. So, a Vonnegut fan. 

“So you guys buy stuff back, too, right? How’s that work?” 

What Cas _wants_ to say is extremely rude (“did you not see the sign in the door that says ‘Sell your books here’?”), but he does his best to swallow those words, and instead gives Hot Guy the brief version of the spiel as they walk through the store.

When they get to the Bestseller endcap in the Teen section, Cas stifles a groan. He’s only got the second and third books from the series, and recalling their last interaction, he has a feeling that Hot Guy isn’t going to take the news well. 

“Unfortunately, it looks like I don’t have the first book in the series, and that was the one you needed, correct?” he explains, hating how ingratiating he sounds whenever he thinks the customer is going to be unreasonable.

“Yeah, Sam hasn’t read that one,” Hot Guy frowns. “You can’t order it or anything?”

“No, we’re a used bookstore, so most of our stock comes from customers, which is both difficult to predict and to control.” It’s a passive-aggressive response, and he immediately feels a little bad about it. Hot Guy rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and starts to turn away, so Cas scrambles for something appropriate to say.

“But I can still check other stores! We have a few more in the city. And if we don’t have it anywhere else, there’s always the Barnes & Noble, about a mile east of here.” Cas points in the general direction, and Hot Guy involuntarily follows the gesture, flushing slightly as he realizes he’s not actually looking at anything.

“Where are the other stores?” he asks, clearing his throat. Cas leads him up to the registers where they have map handouts of their locations. He circles the other two stores and gives directions, only to have Hot Guy shake his head and thrust the map back at him, frowning.

“Those are really out of the way, that’s not gonna work out.” 

Great, now Hot Guy’s back to being a jerk.

“Well, we can still check inventory and have a book sent over; it can take a week, or two at most—”

“Nah, don’t bother.” Hot Guy stalks away from the counter and out of the store.

 

“Get this, that guy from a couple weeks ago was back, and he was an asshole this time, too!” Cas fumes to Charlie as she’s trying to do office work. She still listens solicitously, nodding and ‘mhm’-ing at all the right intervals as Cas rants about Hot Guy (although to his co-workers, Hot Guy is only known as Assbutt Guy). 

“...and after he left, I found the books he’d been carrying around shoved in the Teen endcap. Should have seen _that_ coming!” he finishes with a huff. Charlie makes another soothing noise, and soon Cas goes off to finish rotating stock.

 

 

A full month passes. It’s Halloween, and the company lets employees dress in (reasonable) costume if they so desire. Cas is in the same costume he wore last year: Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye. It’s a simple enough outfit, easy to put together and comfortable to work in, with the added bonus of being nerdy enough to appeal to their comic book customers. His co-worker and friend Meg is dressed as Kate Bishop, and they’re working together at the resale counter tonight, which is garnering lots of comments. He also thinks—and Meg has confirmed—that they both look _smokin’_. (Her words, not his.) 

He’s in a good mood. He likes working Halloween; the atmosphere is festive, it’s usually not incredibly busy, and he loves seeing what costumes his co-workers put together. A few people are planning on going out to this new gaming bar in a nearby neighborhood after close, too.

It’s about an hour before close when things start to sour. They’ve got more resells to process than one might expect for a Saturday night that also happens to be a popular holiday, and one of their closing crew has gone home ‘sick,’ leaving them short-staffed. 

Cas is just finishing explaining to a man _actually named Dick_ that his self-published business guru books are, for all intents and purposes, worthless. As the man stalks off stiffly, laughing in the exaggeratedly loud manner of an attention-seeker, Cas senses someone else waiting. He looks over and—crap, it’s Hot Guy. With a box of books. It figures. 

He has to admit, though, that Hot Guy is really earning the moniker tonight. He’s got some reddish scruff going on, which is _adorable_ , and his hair is longer and a tad messier than the last time he’d seen him. He also looks kind of nervous as he waits to be checked in, but when he realizes Cas is waiting to help him at the counter, his expression clears into something more like relief, though why that would be the case is anyone’s guess.

“Hey, so, I want to sell these. I know last time I was here you kinda explained how it worked, but I was dist—I forgot what you said. So, uh, mind going over it again?”

“Of course.” He rattles off the details quickly, finishing with a deplorably terse “Make sense?”

“Oh, I gotta stay here?” Hot Guy replies, frowning a little bit. 

“Yes, if you can. It doesn’t take long. We actually look much busier than we are.” _Smile, smile, smile._

“Yeah, fine. So, what, just wander around?” Hot Guy asks, brows drawn together in what might be consternation if Cas is being charitable, or possibly constipation if he’s not. 

“Yup!” Cas replies, already feeling his smile start to slip.

Cas ends up working on Hot Guy’s resell, naturally— _Dean_ , he amends, looking at the tag with the guy’s name on it. Maybe he’ll remember the guy’s name eventually. Inside the box are mostly Sci-Fi and fantasy paperbacks, and old ones at that. There’s a few older mystery and thriller titles as well, and a couple of Ann Rule books and an encyclopedia about serial killers (that one, however, has “SAM W” written inside, so he assumes with some relief that Dean’s taste doesn’t run that direction).

There’s also some practically new copies of the Maze Runner series (he guesses Dean went to Barnes & Noble after all), some cookbooks, battered auto repair manuals, and the precious gold nuggets of the bunch: Vonnegut trade paperbacks on the very bottom. Those are clearly well-read, but nevertheless, Cas can tell that they’ve been well cared for. _No name has been pencilled in, for one_ , he thinks, frowning at the serial killer encyclopedia.

Finally, after determining which of the twenty Star Wars paperbacks he’s going to be able to keep and sell, Cas is done processing everything, so he pages Dean back up to the counter. 

The man goggles at him when Cas gives him his offer. 

“For all these?” Dean’s face has paled, freckles standing out. His mouth is all pursed up, and Cas unkindly thinks _constipated!_ to himself again.  
But, he should have known this would happen. The guy is by-and-large an inconsiderate asshole, so of course he’s going to be unreasonable about his offer.

“What was so bad about my stuff?” he asks Cas. Cas tears his eyes away from where Dean is gripping the counter so hard that his knuckles are whitening. Cas is starting to realize that this is beyond the normal level of disappointment for an offer; something else must be going on. It may be the man actually needed the money, unlike the typical upper-middle-class customer that comprises the local demographic. He takes a deep breath, reminding himself of all the things they’re trained to say when people are unhappy.

Instead, he says: “I’m sorry it’s not what you expected. It’s honestly not a reflection of how good the book is—” 

“Yeah, okay, whatever. I’ll just take it, I guess,” Dean cuts him off quietly, grabbing the slip out of Cas’s hands and signing it quickly before moving out of sight at the registers.

 

 

While waiting for Charlie at the bar later that night, he’s telling Meg the full story of Hot Guy and she’s laughing riotously over Cas’s slightly tipsy and overly dramatic mannerisms. Of course it wouldn’t do to slip up and call him Hot Guy in front of Meg, so he meticulously sticks with Assbutt Guy. When Charlie comes in, she catches the tail end of Cas’s story.

“You’re still hung up on that guy?” she teases him, sliding her jacket around the back of a chair across from him. He, Meg, and Kevin have started setting up a game of Seven Wonders, so Charlie flips through the city cards until she finds her favorite. Cas frowns; technically, that’s against their house rules, but they’re here to have a good time, so he lets it slide. 

Letting his pleasant buzz simmer for a bit while Meg deals, he lets his gaze wander around the room. The table next to them has a large crew of Whovians playing a game he doesn’t recognize. Far across the bar are some TV screens where a very vocal game of Mario Kart is happening. He likes Mario Kart, but no one ever plays with him. Charlie plays, but they’ve never made an effort to get together for it. He’s just reached the conclusion that he should rectify that when a loud cheer goes up. Someone must have won a close one.

Cas gets a round of Seven Wonders under his belt before wandering over to the bar to get another cider. The establishment is packed and noisy, being Halloween on a weeknight, so he has to wait several minutes for his drink, idly staring at a TV screen showing what he thinks is a League of Legends match. The bartender returns just as the program switches to something else, so he pays up and is just about to turn away from the bar when a solid body smacks into him.

The man who’d bumped into him laughs at Cas’s silly “oof!”, and _what even is his life_ , of course it’s Hot Guy, clutching a fistful of crumpled up bills. It figures that the man has a stupidly gorgeous smile, with his stupid scruffy face and stupid crinkly-uppy-eyes—and wow, Cas must either be tipsier than he should be from one drink, or suffering the effects of acute Hot Guy Sighting.

Cas recalls the unkind and somewhat inaccurate mockery he was engaged in only a little while ago, and he feels his mouth twisting into something sour and unhappy. Once Hot Guy recognizes him, his smile fades a little bit, too. Cas excuses himself quickly, and merely sets his drink down at his group’s table before heading to the bathroom for a breather. 

He’s standing at the sink, patting his face down with a damp paper towel, when Hot Guy comes in. The man briefly checks that the room is empty outside the two of them, then walks up to Cas.

“What’s your problem, anyway?” Hot Guy says, hands on his hips.

“What?” Cas is taken aback; out of all the possible reasons for Hot Guy to be here in this bathroom, a confrontation isn’t what he was expecting.

“You’re always such a fucking dick to me. I wanna know why.”

“Wh—I’m not the dick, _you’re_ the dick!” Cas retorts angrily, wondering where his brain function went and wishing he could make a better argument. Hot Guy is standing slightly behind him; Cas stares in the mirror, fixated on his reflection with Hot Guy looming in over him. Cas’s white t-shirt with the Hawkeye bullseye draws his attention, and he focuses in on that so that he can avoid meeting Hot Guy’s seething eyes. But as the silence stretches onward, the uncomfortable prickly sensation on the back of his neck eventually prompts him into a speech that he hasn’t thought through. 

“Look. There’s some kind of misunderstanding going on. You’re—whenever I’ve tried to help you, you’re demanding and disappointed and, frankly, a little bit ungrateful. So, yeah, I guess I respond to that poorly. I deal with people like you _all day long_ and some days I’m surprised I still have a soul left.”

Hot Guy snorts disbelievingly.

“Yeah, well, you act like it’s such an imposition to help me! Like how _dare_ I have a question or need help finding something. Always huffing and sighing at me. And I fucking hate asking for help, man! But Sam needed those books for school, so once I had what I needed, I tried to get out of your way. Since you were so focused on your _job_. And yeah, maybe I was ‘ungrateful’ because it really sucked that I couldn’t afford to get him the other books and I had to embarrass myself in front of you multiple times. And yeah, I’m sure it also sucked that you had to go through the trouble of putting all those back. You know, for your _job_. Well, guess what, it’s also your fucking _job_ to be helpful and friendly,” Hot Guy says contemptuously, but it’s without much heat, and more resignation.

“What about the books you left in the wrong section?” Cas blusters. “Your paperbacks, that you left in the Teen section after I couldn’t find Maze Runner for you?” he adds when it becomes apparent from Hot Guy’s bug-eyed look that he has no idea what Cas is referring to.

“Oh,” Hot Guy replies, scrubbing a hand along the back of his neck.  He seems to deflate a little bit. “Honestly, I musta just forgot them. If I couldn’t get anything for Sam, couldn’t very well get something for myself, you know? But I really didn’t mean to leave them there, honest. I was just frustrated, man. Couldn’t find what I wanted, and you seemed annoyed with me,” he shrugs.

Cas sighs, his anger similarly dissipating. Despite working this job for years (or perhaps due to that fact), he’s still far too prone to taking things personally when dealing with customers. The unwelcome realization that he’s just as much to blame as Hot Guy for their unpleasant interactions sits in his gut like a lump. Turning away from the mirror, he stumbles a bit, the product of too much adrenaline or a cider on an empty stomach.  He grabs at the counter to correct himself.

There’s just one more problem.

Hot Guy is very close.

Hot Guy also has his bottom lip between his teeth, and it’s very distracting.

Cas, buzzing with all that adrenaline, does the unthinkable and leans further into Hot Guy’s space, hurriedly pressing their lips together. 

Hot Guy makes a muffled noise of surprise, but quickly gets with the program and starts kissing back. His lips are soft and warm, and he tastes a little bit like whiskey. Cas has no idea how long the kiss lasts, only that it’s over too soon when Hot Guy pulls back. 

It’s not until Hot Guy removes his hand from Cas’s head that he even realizes that Hot Guy’d had his hand running through his hair. Now that the hand is gone, Cas’s scalp tingles with the loss.

“Uh, wasn’t expecting that.” Hot Guy looks confused, the crease between his eyebrows marring his otherwise beautiful face. “You’re not—I thought you were with Kate?”

“Who?” Cas asks, lost.

“The Kate Bishop girl,” Hot Guy clarifies.

“Oh! No, nope. That’s Meg, we’re just friends.” He feels a little giddy, and he’s not sure if it’s residual adrenaline or embarrassment setting in. “You recognized our costumes, though!” _Smooth move with the topic change._

“Of course, man. Hawkeye’s one of the few Marvel titles I read religiously.”

“You’re a DC guy then? I can’t really say I have a preference for one or the other, myself. What is your favorite?”

“You could say—I’m Batman,” Hot Guy growls out in a lowered voice, then snickers at the joke that’s lost on Cas. It’s so unexpected and apropos of nothing that he finds himself laughing along bemusedly. 

“Okay, then, Batman. So, uh—I think we have some unfinished business. Can we keep kissing?”

“Yessir, Hawkguy. And it’s actually Dean,” Hot Guy replies more normally. Cas immediately feels a little silly for having so readily forgotten the name of someone he apparently has a crush on. Before he can feel too bad about it, Dean steps back into Cas’s personal space, gripping his shoulders and pulling them closer together.

“I’m Cas. Castiel, but I go by Cas to my friends.” Cas’s voice is low and raspy with want, and Dean closes in on him with a smile.

“Friends already?” Dean hums against Cas’s lips.

“Well, we _are_ making out in the bathroom of a geek bar,” Cas murmurs back momentarily, his mouth now roaming along Dean’s jaw, feeling his pulse jump in that tender spot just under the junction of ear and jaw. The man even smells gorgeous, like warm, spicy wood with an almost honey overtone, but so understated and faint that Cas has to stick his nose into Dean’s neck to even notice. A shiver thrills through him as he inhales, and suddenly this is more than just making out in a bathroom. Dean backs him up against the wall, his mouth now devouring rather than tasting.

Cas’s hands have gotten under Dean’s shirt somehow. The man’s skin is smooth and warm, and he’s soft and firm at the same time. He feels another shiver when Dean’s hand skims up along Cas’s back, fingers trailing up his spine and raising goosebumps. 

Cas is soon hard, and as Dean leans further into him, he can tell that Dean is, too.

“Mmm!” Cas says, pushing back slightly against him. Dean leans back, eyes half-lidded with desire. In a daze, he wipes a drop of saliva from his mouth. Cas stares, transfixed.

“What is it?” Dean asks. 

It takes a moment for Cas to remember what was so urgent in the face of his pulse roaring through his ears.

“This is a public bathroom, what if someone—” he finally manages to say.

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Dean chuckles. He grips Cas by the shoulders and steers him into one of the two handicap accessible stalls, locking the door behind them.

“I’m not really sure this is an acceptable solution to the whole ‘public’ thing,” Cas objects half-heartedly, belying his concern by diving back into another deep kiss. Dean groans, then pushes Cas again until he’s backed up against the wall. He runs his hands along the waistband of Cas’s jeans, fingers just dipping inside the band, and Cas groans at the light touch, thrusting his hips forward. 

“May I?” Dean asks against Cas’s mouth, and Cas shudders at the vibration. 

“Yes, already! _Please_.”

Dean’s fingers slip further down, touching Cas so lightly it comes close to being ticklish, but finally he unfastens Cas’s belt and unzips his jeans before humming appreciatively and trailing his fingers along Cas’s cock, straining taut against the fabric of his boxer briefs. Apparently the man likes to tease, but this is killing him, so Cas grabs Dean’s hand and grinds into it roughly. 

Dean gives a little gasp, but applies the needed pressure, gripping Cas’s cock through his underwear. Elation shoots through Cas at the feeling, a buzzing thrilling through him.

“Impatient much?”

“Dean, this… isn’t— _ah!_ —going to take long. Let me—” Cas struggles to get one of his hands between them, to unzip Dean’s pants.

“... take my time with you later,” Dean mumbles, but doesn’t resist Cas’s hand snaking in through his undone fly. For his part, Cas is vaguely aware that Dean said something, but it’s not hitting home, since he’s more concerned with getting his hand on Dean’s dick. The hot, smooth weight of him, accompanied by Dean’s moan of want, is extremely gratifying. In return, Dean shoves Cas’s boxer briefs down just enough to be able to grip Cas’s length in his hand as well.

Within moments, they’re both reduced to panting and moaning, unable to even kiss properly in the face of their oncoming orgasms. Cas crests first, with a sharp intake of breath. As he comes back down, he’s breathing hard against Dean’s cheek, listening to Dean’s moans intensifying as he bucks into Cas’s hand. Dean suddenly bites off a strangled _fuck!_ as he comes, body trembling against Cas.

Cas recovers first and gently disengages from Dean, turning the other man so that he’s leaning against the corner between the wall and the stall door. He pulls off a long length of toilet paper and passes it over to Dean before getting some more for himself. He might as well start being nice to the guy since they did just jerk each other off in a public restroom... which is more than a little unusual for him. Somewhat shyly, he glances over to Dean, who’s still leaning into the wall as he tucks himself back in. The man has that same sultry, satiated look about him as he did when they were making out, and it’s so adorable that Cas is hard-pressed not to kiss him again, or, even worse, snuggle. 

The bathroom door suddenly bangs open as someone comes in. Dean and Cas wait stiffly in the stall for him to leave. Sharing a glance, they manfully try to avoid bursting into nervous laughter at the guy humming off-key while he pisses. The door soon shuts behind the unknown person, and Dean pops open the stall door, peering around it. Cas looks around him, and sees that the bathroom is empty again.

“Dude didn’t even wash his hands,” Dean chuckles, and Cas makes a noncommittal noise in return.

They quietly wash up at the bank of sinks, and Cas starts to get a sick feeling in his gut as he senses Dean withdrawing in the face of their awkward silence. He isn’t sure what he expected from this—kissing Dean wasn’t well planned out—and he isn’t sure what he should ask for. He certainly doesn’t _regret_ it; this is actually one of the hotter experiences he’s ever had. But lack of regret aside, perhaps it was still a mistake. Up until ten, maybe twenty, minutes ago they’d practically hated each other.

No, that’s not exactly right—it seems the hatred was a lot less mutual than he’d like to admit. And then he went and kissed Dean. That considered, he shouldn’t blame Dean for being confused or distrustful. So, then, it’s up to Cas to make amends. An overture of friendship, or mutual understanding? Not that he has any idea how these things work. Maybe he should ask Meg or Charlie before opening his mouth, since it seems to get him into situations he’s not equipped to handle. 

He may not have time for that, though, judging by the increasing tightness in Dean’s jaw and the tense line to his shoulders.

The thought crosses his mind: he could just kiss him again. He’s halfway to doing so, leaning in close to Dean, before he even realizes it. Another makeout session is _not_ an ‘overture of friendship’, it’s muddying the waters even more.

“How do you feel about Mario Kart?” tumbles out of his mouth instead.

Dean looks up, startled, meeting Cas’s eyes in the mirror. He slowly starts to smile, eyes crinkling up at the corners in a way Cas is suddenly and horribly certain he’s going to love.

“I’m fuckin’ awesome at it.”

“I see. In that case, you have to meet my boss, Charlie. She’s practically unbeatable,” Cas says, then adds, “I’m fairly decent, too.”

“That so? Let’s go. Right now.” Dean backs away from the sink bank, grinning, with his hands spread in a cocky gesture that seems to be very much Dean, even though Cas really hasn’t seen this side of him before. Cas smiles wolfishly and follows Dean back out into the bar.

“You’re on, Dean.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> yay you made it good job! *high fives you*
> 
> Also, on a more serious note: if it wasn't clear in the work, Cas and Dean are not actually drunk when they hook up. I wanted actual emotion to be the catalyst, and they had to be out of the bookstore to have an honest ~~argument~~ conversation and for the, ah, subsequent actions that follow. A geeky bar seemed like the best place where they could accidentally meet up and be just far enough removed from their normal routine that they could go off script, the stubborn bastards.
> 
> As always, thanks to Team Lube for encouragement and the beta reading! I need a helluva lotta proofreading!
> 
> Finally, if I write a smutty sequel it will be titled "Explosive Tip Arrow" BA-DUM-TSH.
> 
> (wow I really need to get more sleep.)


End file.
